CVD Petitioner Supports Commerce's Use of AFA for China's EBCP, VAT Rate for Aluminum Benchmark
The Commerce Department legally levied adverse facts available related to China's Export Buyer's Credit Program and applied a 17% value-added tax rate in calculating the benchmark for the Chinese government's provision of primary aluminum for less than adequate remuneration, countervailing duty petitioner Aluminum Association Common Alloy Aluminum Sheet Trade Enforcement Working Group argued (Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00290).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Submitting claims against arguments from Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum Co. and Alcha International Holdings regarding the 2020 review of the CVD order on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, the working group said AFA was warranted since information was missing from the record regarding the EBCP and the Chinese state failed to cooperate to the "best of its ability." This claim has been met with mixed success at the trade court and largely hinges on how much information the respondents submitted related to the verification of their non-use of the program (see 2307260081). In the review, Alcha did not provide these non-use certificates from its U.S. customers. The working group said that because of this, and the Chinese government's failure to hand over the information, AFA was warranted.
The working group also supported Commerce's use of a 17% VAT rate in setting the aluminum benchmark, claiming that Alcha failed to show that the 13% rate it champions was a reliable rate. Commerce said it used the 17% rate provided by the Chinese government since the foreign state is the authority charged with setting the VAT rate and has impeded the agency's ability to analyze the program by not responding to the questionnaire responses. Alcha argued that since the use of this rate was effectively based on AFA it "negatively affected Alcha."
While Alcha cites the trade court's ruling in Fine Furniture (Shanghai) v. U.S. to claim that Commerce must look to the record for benchmark calculations and use an alternative if it's available, the exporter "ignores the rest" of the ruling, the working group said. In that opinion, CIT said the problem was that there is no such alternative on the record. The same is true in the present case, the petitioner said, since Alcha's 13% rate "was unreliable because Alcha failed to provide any supporting documentation for that rate."